Here's the first song, not a down-loadable format and not always my type of music but I can jump around to almost anything. Lyrics are a bit risque but they'll get ya' buzzing.

Addendum Day 2

Update. I removed the queen cage from the front of Hive B and discovered it had been mounted upside down and I not removed the cork from the candy end but from the open end. This means that the bees had immediate access to the queen; meaning if they were not yet acclimated to her they may have killed her immediately. That would be bad. To add another twist I found an emergent queen cell in the bottom of storage box B meaning there may possibly be more than one queen in that hive. All very strange, but what I do know is that Hive B appears pretty pissed off. Don't know why and will wait and observe another 24 hours before making any decisions. If they settle down by tomorrow and seem to be drawing out comb things are probably ok.

Ok. We're back for our second and hopefully first successful year. I will relay last years tragedy at a later date.

This year the set up is as follows. Two hives, both with screened bottom board and 1 deep hive body with hive top feeder.

Here goes the start:
Day 1; April 10th, 2011.
At 11:00am I picked up two packages of bees, both with laying queen(non-hygienic). I got the packages from a different source this year and they seemed much healthier: more active and with far fewer dead bees at the bottom. It was a little overcast so I let the packages rest on a table in the carport while I finished preparation for installation. I placed the hive in the same area of the yard as last year, oriented to the South East. At 1:30 I installed the first package and it went very smoothly. I was not able to install the second until about 3:30. Darn life getting in the way. The second installation also went smoothly. I will refer to the hives as A and B in the future.
Both Both hives are identical in all aspect, including color, except for the type of top feeder. The feeder in hive A has a slot in the center to allow bees into the screened syrup access, hive B has a slot located to the back. Both hives seemed to progress in the same amount of time. For the first hour or so the bees were behaving in an exploratory fashion then settled into what seemed to be a routine exit and entrance pattern. All seems good. Oh yeah, I am using a 1 to 1 sugar syrup ratio to feed them.

Day 2; April 11, 2011
Overcast until early afternoon so I waited until about 4pm to make my 24 hour check. Opened hive A and the queen is still trapped in her box. Looks like it may take another day before she is able to emerge past the candy stopper. All in all it looks good. The bees have begun to draw out comb and pretty much glued her box to the frame. I pulled it loose and it looks like they were even starting to store a little honey around the box. These are good signs. I removed the packing box from the hive and replaced 4 of the 5 frames, leaving enough space for the queen box. Very active bees.
Oops, I've made a mistake. Not thinking clearly I propped open the lid on top of the feeder like one would do if lidding the hive with no feeder. This causes problems. Firstly there are a bunch of bees in the feeder and some have drowned. Second I think this gap may also attract pests. I corrected this when I put the hive back together but it was quite a bit of work to brush the bees away while trying to re-lid the hive. Note for the future: Don't do this. Hive B suffers from this same mistake and I will correct it when I do my check.
Cracked B right after I finished with A to discover pretty much the same set of information, however the candy plug is gone. I had to shake some bees loose from the box to see if she was free and in so doing I dropped the box. Nerves, I guess. Well lets hope she was free because she wasn't in the box when I picked it up. The bees in hive B seem slightly less agitated than the ones in A. I'm hoping this means that yes the queen is out and already giving direction and calming the hive. I removed the queen box and replaced the 5 frames where the packing box was.

Separate note; I left the empty queen box by the entrance of Hive B and it is neat to see the bees cluster around it even though there is no queen still left inside. Those pheromones are pretty strong. I am going to remove the queen cage now so has not to disrupt communication as to where the real queen is.

Pictures will follow. Had to order a new charger for the camera and I've dropped my phone at least one too many times for it to work.

We will fight them. . .

Well, I've remove all of the worm eaten comb and consolidated the girls into one hive. Hopefully the bee population density in one hive body will be large enough that they can control the pests themselves. My biggest concern is that it is late in the year and a lot of honey and pollen was destroyed. I am still feeding them and will continue to do so.

The End of Days?

Wax moth catastrophe. I don't have much to say about this, but it looks pretty grim for the girls. Not sure what happened but here is my supposition: Colony is weak from being queenless and possibly tracheal mites. I was housing the weak colony in two hive bodies. It was too large a space for the girls to patrol and the moths got in, wreaking havoc all the way.

The Xerces Society 2011 Bee Calendar

This is a link via a friend of mine. I don't know much about the Xerces Society but the calendars are nice and it looks like a good cause.

Here is their mission statement.

Started feeding the bees again yesterday with a 1 to 1 sugar solution. I guess I keep this up for the rest of the winter but I will double check on that. Only a couple more things in the area left to bloom and the ladies can probably use the extra juice. I think the population, though smaller than it once was, has stabilized. I am still supplying them with grease patties and menthol for tracheal mites. I will remove the menthol in about 2 more weeks.